... King's story is about a firm that offers to get people clean of bad habits, like smoking for example .. the terms: your wife loses a finger on a cigarette you are caught smoking. I supposed there has to be some hide-and-seek, which is my way to "revamp" King, I guess .

The story about the one collecting fingers was called "man from the south" if i recall correctly, been a while since i read them all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_from_the_South

That´s the one, thanks Narttram!

I saw a great movie 2 days ago called "Elite Squad". The movie follows an elite drug squad in Rio, Brazil. I liked it so much because of the narrations by the main character, similar to Goodfellas. I recommend this to anyone who likes a good violent movie while still remaining intelligent.

Recently re-watched Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Saw this first as an impressionable 16 year old sneaking into r-rated movies, then again as part of a class on Religion and Film, in which we discussed the film as a Buddhist Parable, and for which I wrote a paper comparing Ghost Dog and Yukio Mishima's Commentary on "Hagakure," which provided a slightly different analysis than the film. Basically, the story is of a black man living in what looks like New Jersey, who has devoted his life to the code of the Samurai and the service of his Master, a local gangster that once saved his life. He works as a hitman for the mob family that his master belongs to, even though his master is bewildered by Ghost Dog's loyalty. And a bunch of other stuff happens, tho I don't want to ruin it.

And then I watch it again, 5 years later, enjoying the chance to watch it slowly, without analysis. The pacing and the humor, however dark and brooding, still makes an entertaining watch, and the score is excellent as well, imbuing the sparse images with some pulsing atmosphere of a dilapidated city.

Highly recommended. Directed by Jim Jarmusch (who also did Dead Man, and includes a great joke in Ghost Dog connecting the two films).

As a long time fan of the Watchmen Graphic Novel, I was disappointed by the film. Sure it was faithful for the most part, but where it differed or cut were critical parts of the book's multi-layered poignancy. It's cool that the filmmakers worked on some of the supplemental material that appears in the book and between chapters as a bonus release, and that they plan to edit this material into an extended cut for DVD. But I found the film a little hyperactive, and the music was distractingly bad.

"Jim Jarmusch (who also did Dead Man, and includes a great joke in Ghost Dog.."

:lol: ... - remembering it makes me laugh. Those two are the only ones I have watched by him, I don't count his film about coffe and cigarettes which I have skipp-watched .. yet i always appreciate Kate Blanchett in a movie

Care to elaborate? I for once was kind of glad they left out the Tentacle-monster, I thought the Dr. Manhattan-guilt-version from the film was even better.

Jim Jarmusch also did Broken Flowers, which I've seen, and Down by Law (which I've not, but apparently stars Tom Waits). I also kinda half-watched Coffee and Cigarettes, but I don't feel like I missed TOO much.

As far as Watchmen goes, I'd heard from early on that the tentacle monster was to be cut, so that didn't surprise me. My biggest disappointment had to do with the story of the black-freighter, as well as the whole series of interactions that occur on the same street as the newsstand in the book. Those are among the most telling and poignant scenes in the original manuscript, and yet they were probably cut from the film due to lack of action.
Alan Moore was quoted as saying that Watchmen is a comic first, not a movie or a piece of literature, and can do things that other modes of storytelling cannot. It's hard for me to explain what those unique things are, but watching the film I felt that much was missing. A lot had to do with the sequence of panels, especially where the Black Freighter was concerned (how it could have been a metaphor for many of the characters in the film), and the significance of the many recurring images (which Snyder got only the most obvious of.). The fact is that a graphic novel can easily include several independent storylines, some of them non-linear, and juggle them or even superimpose them without confusing a reader. Films have less of this ability, and while the fact that Snyder used the book as his storyboards impressed some Hollywood critics with its narrative and structural innovation, I don't feel he can properly take credit as a selective interpreter.

And did I mention the music? Jesus, that pulled me out of my disbelief more than any other part of the film. Tyler Bates is pretty much a hack.

Well, look forward to watch "Tales of the black freighter" on DVD later this year. They are planning to release a directors cut with that one as animated movie on it. As for the interactions; they´d probably wouldn´t have worked in a movie, methinks.

I enjoyed both versions and their view on the whole story, but that´s maybe because I watched the movie first.

Black Freighter is on DVD already in the states...which means one could probably skip the wait if one were so inclined.

afro samurai , anyone ?

the boondock serial ?

outlander ?
scanner darkly?

I think we had Afro somewhere, but yeah, both cool!

are any other movies that utilize the retroscopy technique of scanner darkly ? ....it looks kik-ass...like a graphic novel...wish they had done the same for the sunken ship that was watchmen

also just got a animated film called renaissance...looks promising..futuristic noir in a cyber-paris !

Waking Life maybe?

Watched STAR TREK XI yesterday. Great movie, except for one mayor fuck-up which made me very, very angry.

Okay, trying to vent this anger without spoilers - There is one scene, involving the "Red matter" destroying a certain planet through a black hole in the planet´s core... Everyone who has seen the movie knows that this destruction must have an impact on the Star Trek universe so severe that NONE of the series a trekkie knows and loves (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT - well okay, ENT stays as it is) could have happened in the way they happened. 50 years of television history, poof. Just for one cheap special effect.

Why do they ALWAYS have to do this re-booting madness? I mean, they may do it if they want (with 007, it was not at all bad for example, and Batman too gained depth from this) but with the STAR TREK movie, they could just have destroyed another planet and everything else would have been untouched. Bah.

Nevertheless, the best part of the movie was that it felt, in a way, like STAR TREK again. Despite some compromises to Hollywood and some logical flaws (A Black hole as portal through time? Aaw, come on... And The viewscreen cracks like glass in the beginning, where have the force fields gone?) I had good fun, best thing was that the actors really did try to recreate the staff of TOS (Karl Urban DID feel like bones, as DeForest Kelley played him ). I am curious wether they will continue now with this staff, but hope they will. The actors were great and felt like younger versions of the original crew.